Marilyn Monroe's home becomes a monument; owners sue

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(The Center Square) – Marilyn Monroe's home is the subject of a federal lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles.

Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank purchased the property in the affluent Brentwood area. It is a 2,300 square foot, Spanish-style colonial home that Monroe lived in for about six months until her death there from a barbiturate overdose on Aug. 4, 1962.

Milstein’s and Bank’s attorneys at the Pacific Legal Foundation said the couple wanted to raze it and do something else with the property.

“The old Marilyn Monroe house has been unoccupied since 2019,” J. David Breemer, senior attorney with the foundation, told The Center Square. “It's not in great shape.”

According to Breemer, the couple got permits from the city to remove the home and clear the property. They also spent money on the project.

“All of a sudden, the city turned around and decided, after 60 years, it wanted to designate the property as a historical cultural monument to Marilyn Monroe, which freezes the property, stops property owners from being able to do anything. And then the city revoked the previous issuance of permits,” said Breemer. 

Breemer said the city's action cost the couple “quite a bit" of money.

They bought this property for $8.5 million at a time when it was not designated as a historical cultural monument. 

“For 60 years, the city treated this property as just a normal residential property,” said Breemer. “They issued permits to 14 other owners to alter, add additions, do all kinds of things to the property since Marilyn Monroe owned it. So when Milstein and Bank bought the property, they just assumed that based on the city's past practices that they would be able to use it like a normal property. And they, in fact, got the permit, so they spent $8.5 million on that at reasonable expectation.”

The couple then spent another $30,000 or more to begin the grading and the demolition process before the city stepped in and said that it was going to designate the property a historical cultural monument.

“So now they're stuck with a property that they can't do much with, if anything, and they are also subject to constant trespassing because of the historical cultural monument to Marilyn Monroe,” said Breemer. “People want to come see it, and to come see it, you have to climb walls and break into the property and trespass.”

That, said Breemer, is happening frequently.

The lawsuit asserts that if the city wants to create a public monument out of private property for what it thinks is the public benefit and enjoyment of keeping it the same forever, then it needs to buy the property and pay just compensation under the Fifth Amendment's eminent domain clause.

“The Fifth Amendment requires the government to pay compensation when it takes' private property. And so the lawsuit here is that the city has effectively taken this property for its public purposes of preserving it without paying the owner,” said Breemer. “It's created basically a Marilyn Monroe Museum on private property and foisted the costs of that on the private property owners because now they're the ones that have to preserve and maintain it the same way.”

The Center Square sought comment from the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, which did not respond before press time.

Los Angeles City Planning told The Center Square that it does not comment on pending litigation.

The case is Brinah Milstein et al v City of Los Angeles et al. It is filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.